More adults are amused at amusement parks

As a kid, I probably would have laughed at this, but it makes sense to me now.

The Wall Street Journal notes that amusement parks nationwide — including Cedar Point in Sandusky — are stepping up their adult-friendly offerings. Their goal: to “entice grown-up fans — who don't have an early bedtime, curfew or school year — to spend more time, and hopefully more money, at the parks.”

The numbers back them up, as about half of all amusement-park visitors, ages 25 to 49, come without children, according to data compiled for The Journal by International Theme Park Services Inc., a theme park consultancy.

To thrill adults, the Six Flags chain's roller coaster designers sometimes make the overhead area through a tunnel "kind of tight, so adults think they are not going to make it. They always duck," says Larry Chickola, chief corporate engineer of Six Flags Entertainment Corp., who is in charge of ride design. Other parks play the nostalgia card, adding retro attractions such as a Scrambler, bumper cars and flying elephants rides.

Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. this summer added Luminosity, an evening show, at Cedar Point. The show feature drummers, acrobats, a light show, pyrotechnics and a deejay rising from a stage. The Journal notes that the park also opened a beer garden with microbrew beers and wine.

Park operators tell The Journal they rarely hear complaints from families with children about packs of grown-ups. Some parks try to segregate the groups.

At Cedar Fair parks, "our children's areas are a park within a park," Stacy Frole, a spokeswoman, tells The Journal. "If you are a thrill seeker, you're generally in another part of the park."

The dreaded mixed bag

Metro areas in the Midwest generally have been more resilient throughout the sluggish economy than the nation as a whole, according to this report by Urban Institute.

Manufacturing and energy exploration have provided the best insulation through the recession, the report finds. Even so, a blog analysis of the report finds that much of the nation “remains a hodgepodge of conflicting trends that are emblematic of the jagged national recovery.”

The Midwest, for instance, “has seen a strong manufacturing rebound that was supported by foreign exports and domestic demand for cars and business equipment,” the blog post notes. “Despite this, many of the region's major cities including Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland had only tepid job growth. One reason: Cutbacks in state and local government have wiped away much of the gains in the manufacturing sector.”

Indeed, the Cleveland and Youngstown markets are the only Ohio metro areas that the Urban Institute labels as “vulnerable” to continued employment downturns.

High anxiety

Worried about paying for your kid to go to college, even if, relative to most Americans, you do pretty well financially? This won't help.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of recently released Federal Reserve data, households with annual incomes of $94,535 to $205,335 saw the biggest jump in the percentage with student-loan debt from 2007 to 2010, the latest figures available. That group also saw a sharp climb in the amount of debt owed on average.

“The surge is leading many such families to look closer at cost and value when choosing colleges,” the newspaper says. “If the new frugality continues, experts say, it could make it difficult for all but the most selective schools to keep pushing through large tuition increases.”

Even if the economy rebounds strongly, "this downturn has been long enough and severe enough that, for a generation, it will alter the way families think about price and higher education," Richard Bischoff, vice president for enrollment management at Case Western Reserve University, tells The Journal.

Separately, a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank fo Cleveland looks at what it calls the “college wage premium” and examines the impact on a student's future earnings of two big decisions: the choice of a college major and the pursuit of an advanced degree.

Debt issues aside, the Cleveland Fed says college is still a worthwhile investment,

In the last three decades, “the earnings of four-year degree holders have significantly outpaced the earnings of high school graduates and those with some college but lacking a college degree,” according to the report. “The sharpest increases occurred during the 1980s and early 1990s, and though they have flattened somewhat in the recent decade, they still persist at a very high level.”

A world of progress

The globalized economy isn't always a victory for workers, but this piece, from Forbes.com, illustrates something of a victory for Ohio.

“Honda Motors is the most American of the Japanese carmakers, manufacturing about 85% of the vehicles it sells here in North American factories,” according to Forbes.com. But two-thirds of the models sold in the United States still are developed in Japan.

That's been changing over time, the post notes, as engineers at Honda's research and development center in Marysville, Ohio, have begun to take on more responsibility.

“At first, they were assigned to develop different body styles of cars Japan had already engineered, like a wagon version of the Honda Accord or a coupe version of the Civic compact,” according to Forbes.com. “Over time, they took on development of Acura models as well as light-trucks such as the Honda Pilot SUV and Odyssey minivan.”

Now, the Ohio crew has earned the task of developing two of Honda's most important future cars: the next-generation NSX supercar and Honda Civic.

“I am not saying the scope of our activities and experience is on par with R&D operations in Japan that were established more than 50 years ago,” says Erik Berkman, president of Honda R&D Americas. “But as an organization, our U.S. facilities and the skill level of our engineers have achieved full citizenship in R&D, which has real value to Honda as a global organization.”